In a component arrangement including a power semiconductor component that has a drift zone and a drift control zone composed of a semiconductor material, with the drift control zone being is arranged adjacent to the drift zone, and being dielectrically insulated from the drift zone, the drift serves for controlling a conducting channel in the drift zone when the component is driven in the on state, i.e. is switched on.
The formation of a conducting channel in the drift zone requires charge carriers in the drift control zone, which, in the case of a component realized as a MOS transistor, can be supplied from a driving circuit or gate circuit of the transistor. However, this can lead to considerably higher gate currents than in MOS transistors without a drift control zone, such that conventional gate driver circuits whose current yield is designed for driving power semiconductor components without a drift control zone can no longer be used, under certain circumstances, in these novel power components. What is more, charge carriers can flow from the driving circuit into the drift control zone only when the MOS transistor is first driven in the on state, such that, at the beginning of driving the MOS transistor in the on state, there are not yet enough charge carriers available in the drift control zone to form a conducting channel in the drift zone. A low on resistance, which fundamentally distinguishes such components, is therefore achieved only after a time delay.